Friday, October 30, 2015

Saving Casey by Liza O'Connor

Saving Casey

AUTHOR: Liza O’Connor

GENRE: Contemporary Suspense

SERIES: Book 1 of the Requires Rescue Series

When 80 year old Cass Goldman learns she has inoperable cancer, she decides to end her life, peacefully on her terms. So imagine her horror when she wakes to find herself in a hospital with strange rich people staring at her. It’s not until the doctor arrives to examine her that she realizes she’s no longer old. She’s in the body of a seventeen year old teen named Casey.

Unfortunately, her new body comes with some serious baggage. First of all, the kid has burned every bridge imaginable. Secondly, those ‘people’ in her room are her outrageously rich parents and while the Dad seems friendly, the mother wants nothing to do with her. The moment they take her home to a horrifically huge mansion, which she dubs Tara, she’s abandoned to the care of the butler.

While Cass is determined to turn this train wreck of a life around, doing so is far harder than she expected. In fact, without help, she’ll end up dead just like the last occupant of this body. Thankfully, her dad has his hunky head of security become her body guard. Between her eighty years of life lessons and hunky Troy’s help, she just might live long enough not to be jail bait.

Oh God, had something gone wrong? Had her attempt at suicide only succeeded in killing her sweet dog?

She opened her eyes and stared at a couple resting in chairs at the foot of her bed. The well-dressed, haggard man looked to be in his forties, his head tilted to the side as if sleeping. Beside him sat a pale, well-coifed woman with tight thin lips, possibly in her late thirties, staring out the window.

Who the hell were these people? Suicide watchers?

In the woman’s lap rested a Louis Vuitton purse.

Rich suicide watchers? Ridiculous! Never in all her years of creeping about hospitals, watching all her friends die off one by one, had she seen a socialite volunteer. And who would volunteer to suicide watch an old person dying of cancer anyway? Surely, they’d have better things to do.

The man woke and gasped as he noticed her. “Casey?” He rushed to her bedside, covering her face with kisses. She pushed him away, ready to yell for help, but when he stepped back, he looked so hurt by her actions that she remained mute.

What the hell is going on here?

The woman stared at her from her chair, saying nothing.

Pulling his chair to the bed, the man sat and pressed his cheek to her hand. “Oh, kitten, we thought we’d lost you.” Tears welled in his eyes. He seemed most distressed.

Cass struggled to make sense of words.

He’d called her Casey when he first woke. Was it possible he knew her? God knows my memory can’t hold crap these days.

But he’d also called her “kitten,” and her nickname had never ever been kitten. This guy had the wrong old woman!

What the hell happened? How could they have possibly screwed up my identity? They clearly rescued me from my home.

The man stood, stroking her cheek with sincere affection. “I’ll be right back. I need to let Leonard know you’ve wakened.” Then he rushed from the room.

Why can’t I remember this man? She tried to recall what her nephew looked like. No…this fellow looked around forty-five. Her nephew would be in his late sixties now. Did her nephew have a son she’d forgotten?

Soon her mystery fellow returned with a doctor of a reasonable age.

The socialite woman stood upon the arrival of the doctor, smiled faintly, and extended her limp hand, which he cherished as if she were royalty.

Who the hell are these people?

The doctor finally stopped worshipping the woman and helped Cass sit up. He put his cold stethoscope on her back. “Take a deep breath.”

She did, and discovered she’d acquired serious lung power. Evidently, consuming a large quantity of painkillers and exhaust fumes could regenerate old lungs.

He placed her right hand in his. “Squeeze my hand as hard as you can.”

She stared at the plump pink hand he held. That was not her old bony hand with blue veins shining through paper-thin skin. She followed the hand up to a plump arm. Holy shit! I’m in a young person’s body! How’d that happen?

Liza O’Connor is a nut.

Not a real nut, but she is prone to being a smart ass at times, and not surprisingly her heroines say odd and inappropriate things in her book, as well. So even in a suspense novel you can expect to laugh along the way. That’s because Liza loves to see humor in the crazy world around her.

Saving Casey was actually the first book Liza published. Having recently reclaimed her rights to the book, she is happily re-publishing it as her 18th book. And because her books sell better when in a series, she using Saving Casey to kick of a new series called Requires Rescue. It will be different from her other series where the same characters show up in each book. This series will be about strong women who are trying to go it alone, only when help is offered, they have the good sense to accept the helping hand, because in all of our lives, there will come a time you need someone else to help you. Being strong doesn’t make us invincible. Book 1 is Casey/Cass’ story. Book 2 will be about an entirely different young woman who desperately needs help before she’s murdered on the streets of NYC. Book 3, well the plot is super unique, and more books will follow.

You’ll be able to read the series in any order you want, but in each case, you’ll have a strong young woman, a guy stepping up to help when no one else does, and danger galore with humor stuffed in anywhere I can.

I hope you’ll come along with me so you can laugh, love, and get revenge.